FOI Requests regarding forced primary academies

From: Matt Kane

12 March 2012

Dear Department for Education,

For the period since 1st September 2011, please provide the following information: 1) A copy of all Freedom of Information requests made to the DfE requesting details of primaries schools that are to be required to convert to academy status. 2) A copy of all Freedom of Information requests made to the DfE requesting copies of guidance and criteria used in selecting candidates for forced academy status. Personal information of the requestor may be redacted. 3) A copy of all replies made to the requests at 1) and 2). 4) For all requests that were refused under a qualified exemption, details of the public interest test performed, including the factors considered and the weight assigned to each. 5) For all requests where a section 36 exemption was engaged, details of the Qualified Person consulted, the date of the consultation, and a copy of the opinion provided.

If any part of this request can be answered sooner than others please send that information first followed by any further information.

If any part of this request is unclear, please contact me at the earliest opportunity for clarification. As this information should be easily available from your case management system I would not expect the time required to perform the request exceeds the appropriate limit. However, if you do believe that the time will exceed the limit, please contact me to discuss the options for proceeding.

Department for Education

12 March 2012

Dear Mr Kane

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon aspossible. For information, the departmental standard for correspondencereceived is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as youare requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number2012/0016235.

Department for Education

3 May 2012

Dear Mr Kane,I refer to your request for information, which was received on 12 March 2012. You requestedinformation on FOI requests received by the Department since 1 September 2011 in relation toschools that are required to convert to Academy status.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I recognise thatwe should have replied to your request within 20 working days and I apologise that we havenot met this deadline.

Following a search of the Department’s paper and electronic records, I am responding bytaking each question in turn:

1) A copy of all Freedom of Information requests made to the DfE requesting details ofprimary schools that are to be required to convert to academy status.

At Annex A are copies of the four Freedom of Information requests made to the DfE requestingdetails of primary schools that are required to convert to Academy status. I have attachedthis under separate cover. Immediately following each request is the response provided bythe Department. You will note that we have redacted all personal information.

2) A copy of all Freedom of Information requests made to the DfE requesting copies ofguidance and criteria used in selecting candidates for forced academy status. Personalinformation of the requestor may be redacted.

The Department has not received any Freedom of Information requests requesting copies ofguidance and criteria used in selecting candidates for forced Academy status.

3) A copy of all replies made to the requests at 1) and 2).

4) For all requests that were refused under a qualified exemption, details of the publicinterest test performed, including the factors considered and the weight assigned to each.

See response for 1) and Annex A attached. The response to each request sets out whether anexemption was applied in each case and, if applicable, the rationale used to apply such anexemption.

5) For all requests where a section 36 exemption was engaged, details of the QualifiedPerson consulted, the date of the consultation, and a copy of the opinion provided.

It may be helpful if I set out the Department’s process for dealing with FOI requests.Section 36 can only be used if, in the reasonable view of a "qualified person", disclosureof the requested information would have one of the specified prejudicial effects. For theDepartment this means our Minister with responsibility for FOI within the Department oranother Minister who is not directly involved in the policy area in question, must decidethat the release would have an inhibiting or disruptive effect. Where this exemption isthought to apply a ministerial submission would need to be prepared showing the arguments infavour of withholding. If agreeable, the Minister would sign a statement to that effect.Following this, officials would then consider whether the public interest test inwithholding outweighs the public interest in release.

A copy of the Minister’s opinion in relation to all of the requests contained within thisresponse that apply a section 36 exemption accompanies this reply [DN- attach pdf]. Thatdocument contains the date of the opinion and the name of the relevant Minister.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to useit for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and forany other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (exceptphotographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes ofnews reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require thepermission of the copyright holder.

Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtainingpermission from a third party see the Intellectual Property Office’s website at[3]www.ipo.gov.uk.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote thereference number above in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should make a complaintto the Department by writing to me within two calendar months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by an independent review panel, who were not involved inthe original consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the Department, you may thencontact the Information Commissioner’s Office. Yours sincerely,

From: Matt Kane

3 May 2012

Dear Ms Foster, Thank you for your reply. I think there is a problem with the attachment. The pdf is only a single page, with just the ministerial opinion. None of the requests or responses were included.